Many online databases are concerned with data items that are inherently location based. For example, an online database of hotels or a database of real estate listings or a database of weekend garage sales can all have locations in the form of street addresses associated with them. In all these cases, the location information is an important aspect of each item, however, in many systems there is no easy way for the user to interact with the location aspect of the data.
For example, it is known to provide a web-based system that shows maps with numbered icons in response to a user's query. For example, if the user requests information on hotels in Miami, the system will show the user what hotels are available by displaying numbers at the locations on the map corresponding to the hotels. The user has to look up the number of the hotel on a legend, to find out what hotel corresponds to the number, and the user must then follow a link to another web page to obtain information about that hotel.
An improved system for presenting location information in response to a user's query is desired.